The cabinet was that in which he kept his drugs, and had not been touched since he left it.
Donal opened the window, took up the cabinet, and threw it out.
With a bellow like that of a bull, the earl sprang out of bed, and just as the crash came from below, ran at Donal where he stood shutting the window, as if he would have sent him after the cabinet. Donal caught him and held him fast.
“My lord,” he said, “I will nurse you, serve you, do anything, everything for you; but for the devil I’ll be damned if I move hand or foot! Not one drop of hellish stuff shall pass your lips while I am with you!”
“But I am dying! I shall die of the horrors!” shrieked the earl, struggling to get to the window, as if he might yet do something to save his precious extracts, tinctures, essences, and compounds.
“We will send for the doctor,” said Donal. “A very clever young fellow has come to the town since you left: perhaps he can help you. I will do what I can to make you give your life fair play.”
“Come, come! none of that damned rubbish! My life is of no end of value to me! Besides, it’s too late. If I were young now, with a constitution like yours, and the world before me, there might be some good in a paring or two of self-denial; but you wouldn’t stab your murderer for fear of the clasp knife closing on your hand! you would not fire your pistol at him for fear of its bursting and blowing your brains out!”
“I have no desire to keep you alive, my lord; but I would give my life to let you get some of the good of this world before you pass to the next. To lengthen your life infinitely, I would not give you a single drop of any one of those cursed drugs!”
He rang the bell again.
“You’re a friendly fellow!” grunted his lordship, and went back to his bed to ponder how to gain the solace of his passion.